


Fate and the Wretched

by FettsOnTop (GTFF)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Accidental Force Healing (Star Wars), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Post-Sarlacc Boba Fett, Tusken Raiders (Star Wars), Unplanned Pregnancy, Wilderness Survival, started as a tumblr prompt and now it's an unbeta'd mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:26:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28535103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GTFF/pseuds/FettsOnTop
Summary: A prompt on tumblr asked me to imagine a scenario where Leia got stranded in the desert with Boba post-sarlacc and then morphed into several scenes and the whole thing entertained me so much I had to put it all together.
Relationships: Boba Fett/Leia Organa
Comments: 34
Kudos: 187





	Fate and the Wretched

The last thing he remembers is hitting the sail barge. He regained consciousness only when the pain of being slowly consumed by the sarlacc’s stomach acids became too much to take. That was before the sail barge exploded. He thinks he might have felt the ground tremble, but that point he was too busy screaming himself hoarse.

Her friends left her for dead. Understandable, given the destruction of the sail barge, but still devastating for the princess when she woke up and found herself buried alive in the wreckage. She remembers feeling the sand shudder, maybe when he made his escape. It shifted the debris just enough for her to slowly and painstakingly dig herself out. 

The Jawas had already stripped away his armor and helmet when she found him bleeding and raw at the mouth of the pit. She needed him to live. Jabba kept the sail barge windows shuttered for most of the journey and she didn’t know the way back. 

She knew they couldn’t stay there, easy prey for other scavengers. She took all the medical supplies she could find and all the food and water. Then she dragged his body on a makeshift gurney across the sands to a shallow cave in the rocky hills. 

It’s astonishing to him every time he looks at her. There’s a deceptive amount of stubborn strength in that small frame. She stripped the dead for their clothing rather than wear the costume Jabba forced her into. All that remains are the boots and the metal collar around her throat.

Jabba the Hutt is dead. They both know there will be repercussions. 

* * *

“That’s the second one today.” Leia’s eyes follow the speeder moving across the sands. She doesn’t recognize the occupants, but she knows mercenaries when she sees them. “They can’t still be looking for me.”

“Hutts are thorough,” Fett rasps from the shadows of the cave. “No body, no proof.”

She toys with the bit of chain still hanging from her collar. With time and patience she can bend the chain links enough to remove them. The collar is another matter. 

Twice a day she applies a salve she made from the sail barge’s extremely limited supply of bacta and the extremely generous supply of alcohol to Fett’s body to try to stave off infection. It’s a brutal, painful treatment that requires him to bite down on something so he doesn’t scream. Sometimes she swipes a little bit of the mixture on her finger and runs it around the inside of the collar to ease her chafed skin. It stings like hellfire and her skin isn’t even broken open like his. 

“Just my luck,” she mutters as the speeder retreats. “Everyone in the galaxy thinks I’m dead except for the hutts.”

“Sorry.”

She retreats into the shadows of the cave, peering at the bounty hunter. “Is your fever back?”

“No.” He shifts on the makeshift bed. “We need to move. They’ll find this place eventually.”

“Why would you care? Aren’t these your buddies?”

“You overestimate my value. And since I’m with you…there’s a good chance they would kill me anyway.”

Leia laughs, loud and harsher than she intends to. “So by saving your life, I’ve doomed both of us.”

Fett pulls himself up, hissing with pain. “Not if we move.”

“Where would we go?”

“Further out into the Dune Sea.”

“What about the sandpeople?”

“What about them?” 

It’s hard to read his expressions. The sarlacc’s acids burned off whatever hair he had, including his eyebrows. He was a handsome man once, Leia supposes, and might still be when his eyes are no longer clouded with pain and his skin no longer looks like raw meat soaked in wine. “Luke said they-”

“Our fate with the Tuskens depends on whether or not they wish us harm,” he says, tilting his head towards the mouth of the cave. “As opposed to those who definitely do.”

* * *

This once, fate is kind. Eight days into their journey, when they’re out of water and hopelessly lost, a Tusken scouting party finds them. Their shaman washes the sand and blood off of Boba and applies a thick paste to his burns while Leia is given better clothing by some of the women. 

The princess understands immediately what is being offered and expected. She joins the others in their communal work while he slowly gains enough strength to do likewise. They are given a hut and daily sustenance rationed out by the tribe’s matriarchs. Every morning they receive an allotment of black melon milk every evening they are given clean water.

The Tuskens treat them as a couple. Why wouldn’t they? Leia helps him wash every night before she washes her own body. His skin is tender but contact is no longer painful. They sleep on the same mat, sharing blankets and body heat. Sometimes his body reacts to her, but they both ignore it.

The first time Boba sees her smile is when she’s with the tribe’s children. They try to teach her their words and signs and laugh uproariously at her attempts. He makes a joke the following night as she helps him wash and is rewarded by a bemused smirk. He knows he’s not a pretty sight, but he’s strong enough now to care for the massiffs that guard and hunt with the tribe. The village matriarchs eye him up and down as his condition improves.

The next time the shaman treats his burns the examination becomes uncomfortably personal. Their lack of offspring seems to be cause for concern. The shaman indicates with words and signs that Boba should masturbate in front of him to demonstrate his ability and Boba refuses. 

He doesn’t mention it to Leia, a decision that he regrets when their neighbors invade their hut a few nights later, beating drums and burning incense. They form a circle around them, chanting and gesturing their encouragement. A fertility ritual. Well meaning and impossible to refuse. 

Leia straddles his lap, giving them as much cover as possible. “So help me,” she says, her face hidden in his neck. “If you come inside me I’ll find another sarlacc and throw you in myself.”

Their performance is convincing enough. No one seems to notice what was spilled on Leia’s thighs and the mat beneath them.

The Tuskens leave and she slides off him without meeting his eyes. She looks angry. She has every right to be.

Boba pulls his knife from his belt and offers it to her, hilt first. “Slit my throat if you want. I wouldn’t blame you.”

She pushes it away. “No, you idiot. It’s just…” Her jaw is working as if she doesn’t like the feel of her words. “I’ve thought about it before. It would be nice, sometimes, just to feel something. And I certainly didn’t want an audience but I just thought if we ever did, there would be…more.”

He leans forward, just enough to kiss her. Her lips are dry and soft against his. It’s a simple gesture, but the incense is still lingering in the air, mingled with her scent and something sparks when his fingers touch her cheek. 

The second kiss is deeper, her lips part against his and her hand spreads over his chest. She’s touched him many times before, but never like this. Never with desire for the body she mended. She wants to _feel_ something. Something other than pity and despair.

It’s a backwards way to go about it, sex and then foreplay. But he succeeds that night and practice only yields improvement. Leia is young and passionate and she’s put a significant amount of time and energy into caring for him. If he can make her nights more pleasurable then he owes her that much. It’s a matter of repaying his debts. 

It also carries the inevitable bonus of making him feel less like a wounded animal and more like a man. He sleeps better. His movements are easier. His skin is repairing itself even without bacta. 

The shaman seems surprised by his progress. Leia’s fingers trail over his body at night, her fingers tracing scars that have all but vanished. There’s a connection there, something that worries in the back of thoughts. But it’s ridiculous to think that her touch has anything to do with his improved state. 

So he doesn’t. 

* * *

For a long time Leia kept track of the days, etching small marks on the inside of their hut. It’s a practice she eventually gives up. By now the rendezvous on Yavin IV has taken place. Did the plans stolen by Bothans uncover a weakness in the second Death Star? Were the rebels successful in stopping the Empire from launching yet another world-destroying weapon?

If she thinks about it too much she’ll go crazy, so instead she keeps her mind on her daily tasks. There’s plenty of work to be done. She’s still learning the language, but she can convey necessary things as she works and the rhythms of the village keep her engaged. Fett is gone more now that he can hunt with others, but when he returns it’s with renewed desire to keep her nights equally as busy. 

His scars will never fully heal, but for a time his improvement was so rapid she notices when it hits a plateau. His skin is still rough in patches, his damaged ear distinct from the other but he’s strong and active and around the same time she begins to feel weak and tired. Her body aches, her breasts are sore and she has dizzy spells that come and go. 

When Fett nuzzles into her at night and inquires whether she would like his hands or his mouth she’s too exhausted to even consider it. The next morning she goes out with some of the women to pack meat with salt and hang it to cure and the smell is overwhelming. She almost vomits twice. 

On the way back her hut-neighbor Fnoor stops her. “The cloths,” she says in the Tusken tongue, referring to the rags that are utilized for menstruation. “You have no need?”

“Soon,” Leia assures her, forcing a smile.

It will be soon. She must have miscounted the days since her last period. 

That night she has almost too much energy. Fett is the one who pleads exhaustion by the end of it, his breathing rough as stretches out beside her on the mat.

She gazes up at the top of the hut, at the circle of night sky visible through the smoke hole. “If we get out of here-”

“You mean when we get out here.” 

“If we get out of here,” she repeats stubbornly. “What happens then? Do we just go on with our lives? Pretend all of this never happened?”

He takes a minute or two to respond. “You’ll want to return to your life. And I’ll want to return to mine.”

By the time another seven days pass, she has to face facts. She’s pregnant.

Most of their nightly activities were arranged to avoid this outcome, but the more skilled Fett becomes at bringing her pleasure the more she wants to help him find his own. If she could shirk her responsibility, she would blame the way he shudders when he’s inside of her, or the soft foreign curses he whispers into her skin.

Or maybe she could blame his groin armor, for allowing his cock and balls to escape the sarlacc’s acid unscathed. 

He returns from a scouting party two days later and pulls her into their hut, excitement surrounding him like a current. “I found it,” he says, a fire in his eyes she’s never seen before. “There’s a Jawa caravan about two days west of here. They want more for it than I’ll ever have in trade, so I’ll have to steal it.”

“What...what are talking about?”

“My armor.”

“Your...armor.”

“Not just my armor,” he adds quickly. “My helmet has the entry codes for my ship and all of my account access numbers. Do you understand what that means?” He takes her hand. “Help me get my armor back and I can get us off this rock.”

They could leave. She could finally get this collar off. She could return to her friends. Her life. They could go their separate ways. 

Unless Fett dies trying to steal back his armor.

She tells him. 

The banthas have their calves in the same season and a few days after the tribe’s calves are born Leia gives birth to a daughter. This is considered to be good luck, the shaman tells her. A fortunate baby. She waves her tiny fists at the world and loudly announces her displeasure. 

The Tusken women laugh at her fury and make approving signs. They give Leia some tea to bring her milk in and help her rest. Then they hand the baby off to Fett and leave.

“She takes after you.” His eyes are fixed on the wailing infant as if she might suddenly disappear. “She’ll need a good strong name to go with those lungs. What was your mother’s name?”

“Breha. What was your mother’s name?” She knows nothing about his family. They have a child together and she doesn’t even know what world he’s originally from. 

“I like Breha.” He lifts their daughter up and rubs his scarred cheek against the crown of her head. “I’m going to call you Bre, but that’s just between you and me. Shhhh, little one.” 

He lays down with her while she nurses, the baby tucked between them. His voice is low. “If we get out of here-”

Leia clumsily puts her hand over his mouth, trying not to disturb the baby at her breast. “When we get out of here.”

“Leia.”

“I know.” She looks down at Breha, safe and content in the shelter of their bodies. “We’ll figure it out.”

* * *

It’s finally time for the tribe to move. They travel for months across the Dune Sea. Breha’s little legs can’t carry her far, so most of the time she rides in a carrier on Boba’s back. “She’s so happy up there,” Leia remarks, adjusting the Tusken headdress that protects the toddler’s head from the sun. “You like being up high, don’t you?”

One day he’ll teach his daughter to fly spaceships in the stars, just like his father taught him. It’s a promise, even if he can only make it to himself. 

Mid-morning they see a house in the distance. Boba sees the Tusken scouts making the sign for “settler,” and hears the word for “empty.” It’s abandoned. Too far out into the Jundland for most settlers. 

For the first time since they left the pit of Carkoon, Boba knows where he is. When he goes to the tribe’s leaders, they seem unsurprised by his decision. They were taken in and treated kindly, but they are not Tusken. No one expected them to stay. The tribe moves on without them. 

“It’s not far to Anchorhead,” he tells Leia. “A day on foot. Last I heard there was an Imperial garrison there. But they might have left by now.”

“Why would there be an Imperial garrison out here?”

They usually avoid talking about before. This is one time he cannot avoid it. “This house used to belong to Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

His first order of business is the moisture vaporizer. He works on it while Leia clears the house of sand and wildlife. By nightfall they have enough water to wash with, just as they did every night with the Tuskens. 

When they’re done, Leia pours out the last of the water and wets her cloth. “We have a bed now,” she says, running it down his naked chest. “That’s new.”

They make use of the bed. He gets up afterwards to check on Bre. Leia made her a bed in the kitchen out of the bottom portion of a long crate. She’s fast asleep, her small mouth slack with drool and strands of silky hair stuck to her cheek. 

This is also new, having the opportunity to enjoy looking at Leia stretched out naked on the bed. He can do more than look. He can trace the curve of her leg with his fingertips, her muscular calf, the curve behind her knee and the soft expanse of her thigh. He kisses the stretchmarks on the lower part of her belly and pillows his cheek on her stomach. 

“What’s the first thing you’ll do?” He asks. “When you get out here.”

“Get this blasted collar off. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in...however long it’s been.”

Four years, he thinks. But maybe closer to five. The Tuskens don’t keep track of time the way humans do. The closest thing Breha has to a birthday is the knowledge that she was born in the calving season. It was their second season there. Or was it the third?

Kenobi might have had a kronometer here. Kenobi might have had a lot of things. 

“Where are you going?” Leia asks when he rises and reaches for his clothing. 

“Hunting.”

Within a few hours they have a complete inventory of everything in the storage units and the cellar. There’s a good quantity of food and medical supplies. There’s even a cybernetics repair kit, which Boba takes apart in an ultimately futile effort to find something that will cut through the collar.

“It was worth a shot,” Leia says, falling back on the bed with a yawn. 

He packs it away carefully, taking note of the quality of the instruments. There was never anything in Kenobi’s bounty listings about cybernetic enhancements. It’s a strange thing for him to have, unless he expected to use it at some point. 

It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that it will be worth something to the right person, and they’ll need money to get a message off world. 

Leia rolls over to her side and pats the bed, inviting him to return. “What’s the first thing you’ll do?”

He wants nothing more than to fall into that bed with her. But like their past, this too, cannot be avoided. “I can’t leave yet.”

“What?” She sits up with a frown. 

“I’ll take you and Bre to Anchorhead. If the Imperials are gone it should be safe for you to stay there until your people come for you.”

“But-”

“I can’t leave without my armor.” He can’t look at her, or at the kitchen where their daughter sleeps. 

“It could be anywhere by now.”

“I know.” He sits on the edge of the bed beside her. “It was my father’s.” One day it will be Breha’s. Another promise he intends to keep.

She lays her hand on his cheek, forcing him to look at her. “You gave up on it before, and I promised that I would help you. We can come back for it.”

He leans forward until his forehead is touching hers. “You will help me. You’ll keep our daughter safe. You’ll go back to your life,” he says, words with the weight of stones. “And I’ll go back to mine. When I have my armor and my ship, I’ll find you.”

There’s grief in the shuddering breath she takes. It only worsens his own. This was inevitable. In some sense he’s known it since the beginning. This may have stopped being a matter of convenience and consolation a long time ago, but he doesn’t think Leia has really thought through what it will be like when she returns from the dead.

They make use of the bed again, without hesitation or caution. If there’s a chance that he can leave her with a parting gift, he’ll take his chances. 

Fate will have to do the rest.

* * *

The ironic thing is that Luke will know exactly where to find her. These hills and valleys were his home, once. Leia tucks one of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s old robes into a belt, hiding her Tusken garb beneath it. It feels shameful to hide it, to bury the things she was given out of kindness and generosity, but they’ll draw unwanted attention in Anchorhead. 

Breha pulls at her robe and grunts in frustration. She doesn’t say many words yet, but the Tusken younglings learn signs first. “What is it?” Leia asks as she places another packed bag by the door. Fett will return soon from checking the traps and then they can begin their journey. 

Her daughter makes the sign for “massif.”

“They’re gone,” she answers, making the sign for things that are far away. 

Her lower lip pushes out. “Dada?”

“No, Dada is-” It occurs to her then. “Oh. You want the toy Dada made you. It’s packed. I know you’ll want it when…” She can’t finish the sentence. “Here,” she says, fumbling with the bag’s straps. “You can keep it with you until we leave.”

Fett made it from a few scraps of leather when Breha was old enough to grab things. She accepts the toy now with a wide smile. “Dada!” She says, her eyes over Leia’s shoulder. 

She turns just in time to see Fett carry a limp figure to the bed. A woman. The smell of scorched flesh fills the house. It’s the putrid smell of a serious injury. 

“Some _hut’uun_ shot her in the stomach and left her to die.” 

They do what they can. Her breathing is shallow and she remains unconscious for the rest of the day. 

“Her name is Fennec Shand,” Boba tells her after Breha has been put to bed. “She’s an assassin. A good one.”

“Did you know her?”

“Not well. We traveled in the same circles.” His jaw tightens as he looks down at their patient. “I couldn’t leave her to die on the sands of Tatooine.”

A fate they both narrowly escaped. “I don’t know what we can do. I don’t have the medical training for this.”

“You weren’t trained in sarlacc acid either, but you saved me.” His eyes burn into hers. “Can you do that again?”

“I don’t know what I did. I just wanted you to get better." Her hands flex at her sides. “And you did.” She can’t explain the panic that seizes her throat. The fear. She didn’t want to see it before but now she can’t look away from the obvious. Every time she touched him she willed him to live. To heal. If she can do that, what else can she do? “I’m not...I’m like Luke or…”

Fett pulls her into an embrace, rubbing her back soothingly. “Never said you were. Maybe you’re just a desert witch.”

She laughs against his broad chest, letting herself be comforted by the steady beat of his heart. It feels ridiculous. But she places her hand on Fennec Shand’s stomach, just above her wound, and wills her not to die. 

And she doesn’t. 

“I might be able to keep her alive, but I can’t repair her intestines. What about the cybernetic kit?”

Fett figures it out, just like Breha's toy and the moisture vaporizer. He doesn't say a word about their plan to barter it to pay for her message.

On the third day Shand opens her eyes. The first one to notice is Breha, who shrieks the Tusken word for an evil spirit and runs to her father. “What,” the assassin says through dry lips. “What the hell is a clone doing out here?”

“Lucky for you that a clone is,” he returns evenly as he gathers Breha into his arms. “And that he has a desert witch by his side.”

“Enough,” Leia scolds as she bends to check the other woman’s eyes and pulse. There’s no doubt now. Fennec Shand will live. 

Her eyes drop to the collar around Leia’s neck. “I have...a bag stashed under a ledge near the road. Weapons. Credits. I’ll give you the coordinates.” She gingerly touches the seam on her side where flesh meets cybernetics and her eyes shut in a wince. “There’s a metal cutter in it.”

* * *

They do it outside, to avoid frightening Breha. He finds a scrap of duraplast and holds it at an angle to keep the sparks from burning her skin as he works. There’s enough light from the moons to see the moment the collar breaks. 

Leia grasps it before it can fall and throws it into the night. There’s a mark on her throat now where it rested for so long. Boba presses his mouth against it. “If I had it to do over again I would kill Jabba before I let him put that on you.”

Something else they never talk about. Leia’s hand curls around the back of his neck, holding him in place. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That I’m a clone? That I never had a mother to pass on her name?”

“But you had a father.”

“I did.” Those two words hold more than all the stars in the sky above them. “He loved me the way I love Bre. That armor is my legacy.”

They hold on one another until she lifts her head and kisses him. “Don’t take too long,” she whispers fiercely. “So help me, I’ll come back and hunt you down.”

* * *

It’s overwhelming. Luke embraces her in the middle of the street, the one flanked with the helmets of Stormtroopers mounted on pikes. So much has happened. The Emperor is dead. Darth Vader is dead. There are uprisings all over the galaxy battling the Imperial remnant. 

“I have so much to tell you,” Luke says, and then his eyes drop to where Breha is clinging to her skirts and he hunkers down. “I guess you do too. Hello, I’m Luke.”

Breha gazes up at her mother and gives the Tusken sign for “settler.”

“He’s a friend,” Leia tells her daughter. 

Luke straightens. “Is there anyone else coming with us?” 

“No.”

* * *

Bib Fortuna’s corpse is still cooling on the floor when he takes his seat. The throne room looks just the same even without the hoards of gamblers, smugglers and mercenaries that used to crowd the halls. 

“That should get some attention,” Fennec remarks as she perches on the arm of the throne, a bottle of spotchka in her hand. “Good and bad.”

She’s right. His coup will bring out every syndicate and cartel from here to Nar Shaddaa, sniffing around for a weakness.

Let them come.

The only thing that matters is that it makes a big enough splash to catch the attention of the New Republic. 

“Someone’s looking for you,” Cara Dune had phrased it carefully. “Someone high up.”

“Can you get a message to them?”

“I don’t have that kind of clearance. Sorry. I can pass it up the chain, but…”

Djarin immediately took note. “Are you in trouble?” His concern is touching, considering his own plight. The Mandalorian gave up his child to protect him, a choice that Boba knows comes with an ache behind his chestplate that never seems to go away. A longing to know what Breha is doing and learning. If she remembers him. If she misses him. 

Djarin’s child is with Luke Skywalker now. Boba’s not sure that the young jedi is up to the task. His child has a far better caretaker. 

“It’ll do,” he says now, tilting his helmet up towards Fennec. “It sends a message. Don’t you think?”

* * *

The commander’s face is ashen as he reads the message. “We have one hour to report to the palace. If we fail to do so we will be treated as hostile invaders.”

Leia looks around the platoon of Republic troops and sees the same trepidation. They’re seasoned soldiers. But they’ve never been up against anything like Boba Fett. 

“It’s okay,” she assures them. “I’ll go and meet with him.”

“We will-”

“No. I’ll go alone.”

Gaining entry to the palace is easy. It hasn’t changed much. Even the chimes she bumped into during her attempt to rescue Han Solo are still there. Her long robe spreads over the steps as she descends. This time she wears the clothing of an emissary, not the disguise of a bounty hunter. 

Fennec Shand sees her first. She nods and walks away, leaving Leia alone with the man on the throne. 

She plants her feet on the grate over the pit where Jabba kept a rancor. He’s repainted his armor, but even through his helmet she can feel his eyes. Watching her. Waiting to see what she'll do. Not so different from the last time she entered this place. “Really?” She says, her arms folded over her chest. “Jabba’s palace.”

“It’s my palace now.” 

“And you think this is a suitable place for children?”

His helmet moves sharply. “Can I see her?”

“Yes. Of course you can.” She takes a step closer to the throne. “Breha and I talk about you every night before bed. You got his armor back. And your ship. I thought we had a deal.” 

“I didn’t know how to find you.”

Now it’s her turn to wait, knowing her silence will be enough. 

“...I didn’t know if you would want to see me.” 

A fear Leia is well acquainted with. Month after month she waited, afraid that their separation would be permanent. Either because the bounty hunter was dead or because whatever spell bound them together on Tatooine was broken forever. “I still can’t see you.”

He lifts off his helmet and sets it aside. “We came together under unusual circumstances. If you want to be rid of me, I understand.”

“And if I don’t?” Whatever he says now will be the truth, even if it’s his own desire to be free. Every second he delays his response feels like eternity. He stands, even more imposing on his feet. Leia takes a step back as he steps off the dias, standing on the grate in front of her. 

“Every day without you, without Bre...It was worse than anything the sarlacc could do to me.”

She'll never know who took the first step. Maybe they did it at the same time. The moment her lips touch his one gloved hand is on the back of her neck and another is at her waist. The kiss breaks off abruptly as his hand parts her robe to confirm what he can feel even through his armor. His breathing halts. “What-”

“Oh, that’s just your son.” Leia presses closer, in spite of the bulk of her stomach. “I was planning to name him after your father. I hope you know how hard it was to track down his name.”

“Jango,” he says, his hand spread over her belly. 

“Yes, I know. Maybe Jan for short?”   
  



End file.
